Thirty-five Seconds
by KifKathleen
Summary: "It was a stupid, selfish offer, asking a 19-year-old shopgirl to accompany him. He wasn't fit company for anyone, certainly not for a young woman brimming with energy and vitality and optimism." For Rose, only 35 seconds pass between the Doctor's first invitation to travel with him and the second. But for the Doctor, it is several days and several adventures.
1. Chapter 1: Volcano

**Author's Note:** While rewatching the wonderful episode "Rose" by Russell T. Davies, I had a couple of questions: 1) Clive, the Internet blogger, showed Rose pictures of the Ninth Doctor near Krakatoa, at JFK's assassination, and with a family who narrowly avoided the Titanic catastrophe; when did the Doctor take all these trips without Rose? 2) What so drew the Doctor to Rose that he would invite her along not just once, but twice? This story grew out of my attempt to answer those questions.

 **Disclaimer:** Tragically, I don't own Doctor Who.

* * *

It was a stupid, selfish offer, asking a 19-year-old shopgirl to accompany him. He wasn't fit company for anyone, certainly not for a young woman brimming with energy and vitality and optimism.

Energy he had plenty of. That was why he was up, prowling the corridors of the TARDIS, somehow finding himself once again in the console room, twitchy, restless, in search of distraction, when he really should be sleeping. But vitality and optimism – those had been in short supply since he had emerged from the haze of regeneration. Since far longer than that, if he was honest with himself. Since he had concluded that there could be no peaceful resolution to the Last Great Time War.

He had tried to tell her that, to communicate obliquely his unsuitability for…well, for anything, really…on that bright, crisp morning on her estate, after he had severed the Nestene Consciousness's connection to the mannequin arm in her flat, after she had trailed him nearly all the way back to the TARDIS. For the second time in their brief acquaintance, he had walked away, left her staring after him, and fully intended never to see her again.

And then their paths inexplicably crossed for a third time, and he saved her life yet again, and she saved his, and when he dropped her back home, the third goodbye that he had framed in his mind somehow emerged from his mouth as an invitation.

He extended the offer offhandedly, as if her reply didn't matter to him in the slightest. And when she declined, he didn't push the issue, just closed the door on her and dematerialized his ship with no attempt to change her mind.

"I don't need her," he said to his reflection. In the clear casing of the time rotor, his face appeared distorted and distended, as faded as his soul. "I'm better off on my own – I can go where I want, when I want. It's better this way."

But it wasn't. He always enjoyed his travels the most when he had a companion, someone with whom to share the adventure and the wonder of the universe. Added to that was the aching loneliness he had felt ever since awakening to realize that the chorus of telepathic whispers and hums that had formed the background music of his entire life was now totally, utterly silent.

"A holiday, that's what I need," he announced to the reflection that seemed to mock him with its funhouse-mirror pinching and bloating. He had never been particularly averse to talking to himself – often he had the strange sensation that there was an audience hidden just beyond his ken to whom he had to explain his actions – but these last few days, the quirk had become a necessity, a way to fill the echoing void. "Yes, a nice holiday – lay on a beach, soak up some sun, read a book…" _You couldn't rest easy long enough to soak up sun on a beach,_ his reflection seemed to say. _You can't even sleep._

"I don't need much sleep. Another reason it's just as well I didn't get saddled with that human for a companion – inferior physiology, humans practically sleep their life away." _True, but even by Time Lord standards, this is insomnia._

* * *

As his ship wheezed to a halt, the Doctor checked the view on the monitor. Ah yes, this was the idyllic setting he needed to soothe his frayed nerves. Waves lapped at white sand, palm trees swayed gently, a group of women sat on the shore cleaning fish, chattering and laughing, while the men repaired nets and canoes and children chased each other down the beach.

The scene looked like nothing he had ever witnessed in Gallifrey. But somehow, with the locals appearing so relaxed and carefree and contented, the way his people never would again, it aroused a wave of homesickness that left him weak in the knees. He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, forced back the burning moisture. He had not shed a tear through all the dark days of the war, he had not shed a tear since awakening and remembering what he had done to them all, and he was certainly not going to shed a tear now that the worst was over, now that it was behind him, now that it was done. _Get over it, Doctor. Move on. You're here to unwind._

"Holiday. Fun. Relax." He pushed himself off the console and headed for the exit. The natives were all wearing light cotton dresses and sarongs in brightly-colored patterns, but it didn't even occur to him to change out of his thick-soled boots, his heavy-weight trousers, his leather jacket that he wore like dark armor to shield him from the world.

He threw open the door, grimly determined to start enjoying himself, and realized right away that he had made a mistake. The stench of rotten eggs made him recoil. A mist of ash, too fine to have showed up on the monitor, floated through the air, eddying in the breeze. The sky ranged from a dull grey overhead to an eerie yellow near the horizon. He stepped out and looked around for the source of the noxiousness, and found it at once – an island on the horizon, a tall cone belching thick black smoke, a volcano on the point of catastrophe.

The sane thing, he reflected, would be to jump right back into the TARDIS and chart a new destination. But he wasn't feeling too sane these days. Taking a perverse pleasure in the ruin of his holiday plans, he clasped his hands behind his back and strolled down the beach, whistling tunelessly.

His thoughts, racing over everything and nothing, too disjointed to be sensible and yet frequently featuring an inquisitive blond who was unexpectedly level-headed in a crisis, were interrupted by a ball landing at his feet. He picked it up, a fist-sized wad of rags bound in twine, and tossed it back to the boy who came running after it. The boy, about ten years old, was wearing a green plaid sarong that reminded him of the kilt of a long-lost friend, and the Doctor dug his nails into his palms to fight off yet another wave of nostalgia. The child stared curiously at the stranger, head tilted, bouncing the ball in his left hand, dragging a stick back and forth in the sand with his right, and looked to be in no hurry to rejoin his playmates at the water's edge. So the Time Lord forced a friendly smile, tried to remember how to be sociable.

"Hello there. I'm the Doctor. Who are you?"

"Sukarno."

"Nice place you've got here, Sukarno. It doesn't half smell though, does it?"

The boy looked puzzled, and for a moment the Doctor wondered if the TARDIS had stopped translating for him. But then he said, "What smell?"

"What smell? The one like eggs that have been sitting out in the sun for a couple months. The one from the volcano across the water."

"Oh, that." Sukarno shrugged. "You must be new here. We don't even notice it anymore." He tossed the ball in the air, swung at it with the stick, and missed by a mile.

The Doctor caught the ball with the toe of his right boot just before it could hit the sand, flipped it up, hit it with the inside of his left heel right into Sukarno's hands. He was rewarded by a broad flash of white teeth in the brown face. _You just invented Hacky Sack 100 years early, Doctor. That should make you happy._ It did, for about two seconds. Then he inhaled another lungful of sulphur, and the good feeling was gone.

He turned to look again at the menace rising in the distance, and recognition struck. "Sukarno, tell me," he said, already knowing the answer, and the boy took a step back at the urgency in his voice. "What is the name of that island?"

"Krakatoa."

The Doctor choked on a cry of despair. He had been there before, with his granddaughter, on the island itself, had barely escaped from the disastrous final explosion that hurled two thirds of the island into the sea.

Susan had been inconsolable. He had assured her that the island was uninhabited, that the shrieks they heard as they fled back to their ship were not the cries of tormented souls but the sound of pressurized steam, like the whistling of a giant terrestrial teakettle. But Susan, even at her young age, was a scientist in her own right; she knew enough of geology and physics to know that the death zone from the aftereffects of the cataclysm would extend out hundreds of miles from the island itself, would encompass thousands of lives. And so she had cried herself to sleep, while the Doctor sat by her bedside, stroking her hair and murmuring ineffectual words of comfort and cursing himself for exposing the child to such pain.

And now here he was again, in nearly the same place and nearly the same time, and just as incapable of stopping the disaster in his latest incarnation as he had been in his first.

"What is the date, Sukarno?"

"August, I think."

"August what?"

"I don't know, just August." The boy, clearly deciding that his new friend was a bit unhinged, began edging away, but the Doctor gripped his shoulders.

"Listen to me. You have to get out of here – you, your family, everyone. Just go, now. That volcano is going to blow."

"Sure, it probably is, but what's that got to do with us? It's miles across the water."

"No, you don't understand. The pyroclastic flows, the ash fall, the tsunamis…" He couldn't go on. What was the point? Where were these people supposed to flee to, in their little fishing boats and their outrigger canoes? _Maybe there is time. Maybe it's early August. Maybe it's not even the right year._ "What is the date, Sukarno? Try to think, August what?" The boy tried to pull away, but the Doctor had a firm hold on the thin shoulders, shaking him to try to get the urgency of his point across.

A new voice answered. "August 26."

The Doctor spun to look at the speaker. He felt Sukarno pull from his grasp, heard the boy's footsteps pound away across the sand, but he didn't bother trying to catch him.

"You frightened the child." The speaker was a middle-aged European gentleman, an Englishman judging by his accent, wearing a white linen suit and a white straw hat and a white goatee, neatly trimmed. He carried a folding stool and easel under one arm, an umbrella, sketchpad and box of charcoals under the other, and he now began setting up his sketching station with an air of unconcern for the madman before him.

"He should be frightened. Everyone should be frightened." The Doctor clutched at one last straw: "What year is this?"

A slight twitch of the head was the only sign that the artist found the question surprising. "1883. Are you a castaway, to have so lost track of time?"

The Doctor's laugh was bleak and humourless. _Castaway. Adrift. Rudderless. Homeless. Hopeless._ "Yep, that's me." A castaway, a stone's throw from Krakatoa, on the very day its death throes would commence, just a few hours before it would drag thousands beneath the waves with it. His hands balled into fists, but there was no enemy to fight, so he shoved them into the pockets of his leather coat. "I'll tell you what I told the boy: You have to leave. Now. If you stay, you die." But his voice had lost its force. What was the use? He couldn't change this; he couldn't save these people any more than he could have saved his own. _At least this time you're not the cause of the destruction._

The other man had his charcoals out now, and he was more interested in the Doctor's pose than in his warning. "I daresay, there will be quite a show whenever it finally does blow, but I do think you are overreacting just a bit. Listen, my good fellow, would you mind terribly standing just like that for a few moments? Such an interesting vignette – the man and the mountain, both so ominous and foreboding."

The Doctor stood unmoving for a few moments, less to oblige the sketcher than because he was paralyzed by his own powerlessness. At last he dredged up the energy to trudge slowly back to the TARDIS.

"Wait! Don't leave yet! I would like to hear the story of how you came to be marooned here."

But the Doctor kept on walking, muttering low, "You wouldn't, mate, you really wouldn't."

* * *

 _To be continued in Chapter 2: Iceberg_


	2. Chapter 2: Iceberg

**Disclaimer:** Tragically, I don't own Doctor Who.

* * *

He flipped on the monitor as the timeship materialized. Since a peaceful tropical beach was apparently not in his future, he had decided to try a cruise. "The _Queen Elizabeth_ , the largest ocean liner in the heyday of transatlantic luxury travel. A few days in the middle of the ocean, nothing but water as far as the eye can see, nothing for me to do but relax. That's got to be good for the soul, yeah?" He wasn't quite sure whom he was trying to convince with this speech.

The monitor showed a small room, shelves lining the walls, stacked to the ceiling with sheets and towels. "And good parking skills, if I do say so myself. Linen room – a much better place to land than on the lido deck in front of hundreds of witnesses."

His first clue that yet another holiday plan had gone pear-shaped came in the way the TARDIS door swung heavily inward when he opened it. The inside of his timeship maintained a gyroscopic equilibrium, but the outside was obviously not so horizontal. "Must be riding up a wave," he announced to no one, and waited for the pitch of the room to change as they slid down the other side. When this didn't happen, he pulled against gravity to close the TARDIS door behind him and opened the door of the linen closet.

This was when he received his second clue that all was not right; from the hallway were clearly audible sounds of fear and distress, noisy confusion coming from a multitude of voices. He searched his memory for any incident in the _Queen Elizabeth_ 's history that could cause such mass panic, but could think of none. Which could only mean that someone was mucking about with history. "Alien invasion – it's the only explanation. Not the first time I've run up against an unscheduled incursion. The ship's probably being overrun by a whole horde of Da–" The word caught in his throat, too painful to speak, too raw to even think. "–Of Cybermen. Or Sontarans. Maybe Zygons." Well, whoever they were, they were going to find that he was in no mood to be trifled with. He set off through the halls in search of trouble.

As he rounded a corner, a man in steward's livery was hurrying by, and the Doctor grabbed his arm. "Pardon, mate, just a quick question."

The steward swung to face him, face tight with anxiety, but not too far gone to cast a disapproving eye up and down. "What are you doing here?"

"Me? I'm–"

"These are the first-class cabins. Strictly off-limits to steerage passengers, and– Oh, what am I saying?" He made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob. "First class, third class, what does it matter now? We're all doomed."

"Not if I can help it. I just need you to point me in the direction of the invaders."

"The invaders?"

"Yes, invaders. Attackers. Aliens. Come on, man. Who are they, anyway? Metal robots with handles coming out of their ears, by any chance? It would help if I knew what I was walking into." The steward just goggled at him. The Doctor was rapidly losing patience. "Listen, I happen to know for a fact that the _Queen Elizabeth_ was never sunk by alien invaders. So if you'll kindly point me in the right direction, I'll make sure that history stays on course."

The man finally found his voice. "I don't know anything about any _Queen Elizabeth_. But the _Titanic_ is going down, and there's nothing you can do to save her. If you want any chance of saving yourself, you'd best get abovedeck, and fast. Now if you'll please let me go, that's exactly what I'm trying to do." He pulled his arm free from the Doctor's grip and ran off down the corridor.

The Time Lord stood rooted in the hallway, shouting at the retreating figure. "Not the _Titanic_! The _Queen Elizabeth_ , not the _Titanic_!"

But the delusion shattered as a mob of people swept around him. Their patched and homespun clothing marked them as third-class passengers; but more than that, it marked them as belonging to an era 50 years earlier than he had thought.

They were lost, he realized, stumbling in panic through corridors, up staircases, running into dead ends and locked doors in their quest for the boat deck. And so he did what he did best, what he knew he could still do, even in his broken and fractured state: he took charge. "This way!" he yelled, manoeuvering himself to the front of the pack, letting his nose and the sonic screwdriver lead him to fresh air.

The tragedy of the _Titanic_ had been compounded, he knew, by the gross underutilization of the lifeboats. If he could make it there in time, if he could oversee the loading of the boats and fill them to capacity, hundreds of lives would be spared.

But when he burst through the door onto the boat deck, he saw at once that he was too late; all the lifeboats had been launched. He ran for the railing, leaned over as far as he could, hoping against hope that there was just one raft left for his desperate crew, leaning so far out that his face was slapped with the salt spray of the waves that had reached nearly to this level, leaning so far out that his feet almost came off the deck and he felt hands tugging at the hem of his jacket, pulling him back in. As if it mattered, he thought grimly, when they were all about to end up in the drink anyway.

Unless…wait, he had the best lifeboat there was, a ship of infinite capacity! Ignoring the tiny voice whispering _Fixed point_ in the back of his mind, he shouted "Everyone follow me!" to the crowd milling about the deck. No one paid attention; some were sobbing hysterically, some dashing about in frenzied but fruitless action, some sitting stoic and accepting.

He tried again. "I know where there's another liferaft. Come on!" This time a few heads turned, a few people stepped towards him. It wasn't much, but there was no time to waste trying to convince the rest.

And then suddenly, there was no time at all. The ship pitched forward, downward, and a wall of displaced water swept along the deck, washing away dozens of hapless victims. The Doctor grabbed for the railing, felt his arms nearly wrench from their sockets as the momentum of the wave swung his body up and over his grip onto the outside of the rail, but managed to keep clinging on. There was a terrible grinding, groaning sound as fatigued metal lost its battle against physics and the ship broke in half. The deck lights flickered and went out, plunging the whole nightmare into moonless, inky blackness. The Doctor could feel rather than see that the boat's angle was steadily increasing, that the stern section he clung to was now nearly vertical in the water. It was far too late to try to reach the TARDIS; he had moments, at best, before the whole thing went under and pulled him down in its wake. He braced his feet against the side of the ship and jackknifed off.

At some point in the depths of the Time War, he thought he had lost the will to live. Death seemed a welcome release from the soul-crushing horrors of the war, from the unrelenting guilt in its aftermath. But as soon as his body plunged into the frigid water, as soon as he inhaled a lungful of saline and surfaced, choking, coughing, he knew it wasn't true. He still wasn't quite sure how to get on with living, but he knew he wasn't ready for dying.

His boots were heavy, weighing him down, and he kicked them off, then struck out for…he had no idea where, just knew he had to get as far as possible from the foundering behemoth. He could feel the suction as the _Titanic_ slipped beneath the waves, but he kept on stroking, kept on moving away. The cold seemed to be a living creature, now slashing at him with razor-sharp claws, now squeezing at his hearts. He could endure it longer than a human could, but he knew that even he would reach his limit.

Something broke the waves with a violent splash, narrowly missing him, causing him to yelp and roll sideways. He could just make it out in the faint starlight: a wooden door, torn from its hinges, propelled to the surface by its buoyancy. Around him, he could hear similar splashes mixed in with the moans of the dying, and he swam harder to escape the debris field.

A ghostly shape loomed in front of him; in the near-total darkness, he didn't see it until he nearly swam into it. It was an iceberg, a baby sibling of the one that had caused the calamity, but big enough for his purposes. He dragged himself out of the water, clambered up the side until he found a spot out of reach of the lapping waves and flat enough to rest on. He tucked his hands up under his arms, curled himself into a ball, focused all his reserves of energy on maintaining a viable body temperature, and waited for daybreak.

* * *

The sound of cheering from a nearby lifeboat roused him from a dangerously deep slumber. He took a mental inventory of his condition. Not good. Violent shivers wracked his body; his teeth chattered uncontrollably; he couldn't feel his feet. He opened his eyes, but the night was still pitch black, and the view with his eyelids up was not much different than with them down. Except that…ah yes, now he could see the cause of the cheers: the lights of a ship, still far in the distance but drawing closer. Rescue was on the way.

He tried to sit up, but every frozen muscle in his body protested the attempt. "Objection duly noted and overruled," he said through gritted teeth, and forced himself upright through sheer willpower.

He wondered how hard it would be to attract their attention, a lone man on an icefloe. Then he wondered how hard it would be to explain how he had managed to survive temperatures that would have killed any human. Well, it wasn't like he had a choice about seeking rescue, not if he didn't want to set a record for shortest time between regenerations.

He strained to see into the distance, tried to judge the speed of the approaching ship and how long until it arrived. He pulled himself to his feet, knees bent to maintain his balance on the gently rocking ice, arms wrapped tightly around his body for the scant warmth it provided, and twisted side to side from the waist in the hope that motion would generate heat. And it was as he swung his torso as far around as his stiff muscles would go that he saw what was just then the most welcome sight in the universe: a large box, bobbing in the waves, barely visible in the darkness except for four words glowing a soft white.

"Oh yes! My magnificent, fantastic, buoyant, waterproof girl!" Without hesitation, he plunged into the icy sea, biting back a yelp at the shock. He swam to his salvation, which was conveniently floating with the door pointed up to the sky, and half-climbed, half-fell inside.

He was greeted by a blast of warm air; the TARDIS had obviously raised the thermostat in preparation for his arrival. As soon as he closed the door, the interior dimensions rotated and stabilized so that the floor was once more beneath him. He staggered to the jump chair, where he found waiting for him a clean set of clothes, warm as if fresh from the dryer, and a thick blanket. He stripped off his stiff, wet outfit, put on the other, wrapped himself in the blanket, and sank immediately into a deep sleep right on the grating.

* * *

When he awoke some time later, he was feeling much better physically. Mentally was another matter. His dreams had been filled with the cries of the doomed passengers blending into cries of doomed Gallifreyans, with the water and ice of the North Atlantic somehow mingling with the fire and smoke of the last day of the Time War. He hadn't helped them, hadn't saved them, not then, not now, and he was utterly exhausted.

The bobbing motion of the TARDIS reminded him that he had not dematerialized before passing out. He set a course for a holding pattern in the Vortex for lack of any other destination in mind, and leaned back against a coral strut. And there he stayed, staring dully into the time rotor, until his lethargy and numbness gave way to a blinding white-hot rage. "Useless!" he shouted at his reflection. "Utter waste of flesh! No good to anyone! Why are you even still alive? How did you manage to destroy everyone but yourself? What is the point of you?" His hand closed around the mallet that hung from the console, and he reared back, ready to obliterate his image by shattering the rotor.

The tolling of the cloister bell shocked him back to his senses. Never before had he heard it ring at the mere anticipation of danger. But then, never before had the source of the danger been one who was telepathically linked to the ship. He dropped the mallet to the grating and stroked the console soothingly. "I'm sorry, old girl. It's not you I'm mad at. It's just…I've done so much wrong, it seems I'll never do anything right again."

The unending hum of the ship, so familiar, so comforting, deepened and strengthened. And the monitor flashed to life with a series of pictures. He saw various scenes of London streets, people milling about amid the carnage of shattered glass and fallen shop dummies. The last image was of Rose, the first time he had left her, just outside a back door of Henrik's, still in shock at her first experience with the Autons. Then the screen faded to black.

He bowed his head. "Yes, I know. A lot of people died there. Starting with that electrician at Henrik's, ending with everyone the Autons mowed down before…before the anti-plastic. My fault. If I had acted faster, if I had done more…" The tone of the humming changed again, somehow managed to convey disapproval. Another series of images appeared; this time, the figures walking the streets were all plastic dummies, the bodies lying still on the pavement human. The last image was of Rose, cringing in the basement of her shop, with no one to grasp her hand or tell her to run, as an Auton raised its hand for the final blow. The Doctor closed his eyes before it came. "That never happened! I saved her. I stopped… _we_ stopped the Consciousness. How can you – oh. Oh, I see. You are linked to all possible timelines, even the ones that never happened, aren't you?" The original pictures flashed by again, and this time in the close-up on Rose, he could see that her face contained shock, yes, but also puzzlement and wonder and mobile, expressive _life_. And now he understood what the TARDIS was trying to convey. "People died, but people lived. The Nestene Consciousness didn't conquer the planet. I didn't save the shop electrician, but I did save the shop clerk." The ship hummed her approval of his comprehension. "Sorry, I appreciate what you're trying to do, but what I did with the Consciousness, whatever bit of good I managed to achieve…on balance, it's not enough. It could never be enough." He sank to the floor, back to the console, tipped his head back against the pedestal, rubbed his face with both hands. "But maybe that's not the point, eh, girl? I can't atone for what I've done. But, against all expectations, I'm still here. And as long as I am, maybe I can still manage to make a difference to someone every once in a while."

He sat there for a few minutes more, elbows on his bent knees, head in his hands, until a new thought occurred to him and he slapped his palms on the floor. "But you know what? I _am_ mad at you. You're the one who keeps dropping me in places where I _can't_ make a difference. Krakatoa, the Titanic – what's your game? And don't try to act all innocent with me," he added as the pitch of the humming rose. "One such trip might just mean some knackered circuits, but two in a row – that's no accident. So what are you playing at?" He jumped to his feet, looked to the monitor for a response, but it was blank. He frowned. "What, you want me to work it out for myself? Okay, fine." He paced around the console, running a hand along the edge, for several minutes, while he tried to organize his racing thoughts. "Is it…are you trying to say that not everything is my fault? That there are some events beyond my control, and I just have to accept them? 'Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change', that sort of thing?" The lights flickered in agreement. "Well, thanks all the same, but I can do without any more of your lessons, yeah? If you think my life is still worth living, if you think that there is still some good I can do, then take me someplace where I can do it. Go on, then. Have at it." He closed his eyes, hit some random switches and twirled some dials, and let his ship take him where she willed.

* * *

 _To be continued in Chapter 3: Quayside_

 _Author's note: Special thanks to James for his awesome Googling skills in discovering that the deck of a ship that holds the lifeboats is called the boat deck. In retrospect, I probably should have guessed that._


	3. Chapter 3: Quayside

**Disclaimer:** Tragically, I don't own Doctor Who. A couple lines are quoted from the episode "Rose" by Russell T. Davies.

* * *

He stepped out the door, looked around for a clue to the time and place. A few feet away on the busy street, a newsboy was hawking an armful of papers by shouting lurid headlines that doubtless bore little resemblance to the printed material. "Here, let me see one of those." He snatched a paper from the boy, found the information he was seeking on the masthead, and gave an inarticulate cry of rage. Southampton, April 9, 1912. His ship had carried him back just six days, to the eve of the ill-fated voyage.

"Hey, that pape ain't free, mister," the newsboy said in a creaky soprano.

The Doctor didn't even hear. He rolled the paper into a tube and shook it at his errant timeship. "What are we doing here? It's a fixed point; you know that as well as I do. What do you want from me? What do you expect me to do?"

Realizing that he still held the purloined newspaper, the Doctor turned to give it back to its vendor, but the child had apparently decided that the price of a paper was not worth dealing with madmen who shouted at wooden boxes, and had melted away in the crowd.

He thrust the paper into the hands of a random passerby in a bowler hat, shoved his fists into his jacket pockets, and wandered down to the quay. The _Titanic_ loomed grand and arrogant over the harbor; stevedores hurried up and down the gangplanks, loading supplies and luggage that would never see the other side of the Atlantic.

Something nudged his foot, and he looked down to see a red, hard rubber ball. He picked it up, rolled it around his palm, looked up for the owner, half-expecting to see a dark-skinned boy in a green plaid sarong. Instead he found a rosy, freckled girl, perhaps ten years old, all blond hair and blue eyes and white woolen coat buttoned over a blue gingham frock.

The girl was watching him shyly from a few paces away, hands behind her back, the toe of one boot pointing straight down and twisting half-moons into the dirt of the street. He smiled at her, bounced the ball in his hand. "This yours, then?" She nodded, and caught the ball deftly when he tossed it to her. "Hello, I'm the Doctor. What's your name?"

"Rose."

He barely stopped himself from seizing her shoulders and peering into her face. "What did you say?"

"Rose. Rose Daniels."

He forced himself to breathe, in slowly, out slowly, feeling ridiculous for the way his hearts had momentarily seized at that name. Because the name was really all the two girls had in common. Rose Tyler had brown eyes, and her blond hair came from a bottle, and she wouldn't even be born for nearly three quarters of a century. Still, his mind wandered to wondering what his Rose – _not_ your _Rose, just_ another _Rose –_ had looked like at this age. _Stop it. She said no. She's nothing to you. Let it go._

He realized that the girl had spoken. "What was that?"

"I asked, 'Whose doctor are you?'"

"How do you mean?"

"You said you were _the_ doctor, not _a_ doctor. So I suppose you must be someone in particular. Are you the doctor for the new ship?" She tipped her head towards the behemoth at anchor.

He smiled down at her and thought of another Rose who had made a similarly insightful if erroneous guess. Maybe they had more than just the name in common after all. "Clever girl. No, I'm not the ship's doctor. But yes, I am someone in particular."

"What are you a doctor of, then?" She scrunched her forehead, squeezed her eyes closed as if trying to remember a lesson. "I mean, of what are you a doctor?"

"Me? I'm a doctor of everything and anything." On some wild impulse, he leaned down, whispered conspiratorially, "You know all those stars you can see twinkling at night? I make house calls on them all. Doctor of the universe, I am."

Rose's face creased in a broad smile. "You're funny. I like you."

Something about her easy acceptance of his strange declaration tugged at his heartstrings, and he turned away abruptly, strode to the stone balustrade overlooking the dock, leaned on his elbows whilst he watched the bustle below. But then he felt the little girl beside him once more. "You don't look much like a doctor."

"Don't suppose I do. But looks can be deceiving."

She was quiet a moment, then said, "She's pretty, isn't she?"

He followed her gaze to the ship that had nearly been his grave just a few hours earlier. "The _Titanic_? Yep. Remember what I just said about looks."

"We're sailing on her tomorrow."

He spun to face her. "You're what?"

"My family. We're moving to New York."

"What do you want to do that for?"

"I don't, not really. Well, not at all. But my dad got a job in America, so we all have to go. It will be an adventure, though, won't it? Have you been to America?"

He just stared down at the child until her hopeful, nervous smile faded. He knew what he had to do now, knew why the TARDIS had brought him here. There was nothing he could do about the sinking of the _Titanic_. But he could do his best to make sure that this one family was not on the passenger manifest.

"And what kind of job does your dad have, to carry you so far away?"

"He makes arms and legs for people who haven't any. He has all kinds of ideas to make them better, and he says that perhaps in America his new bosses will listen to him."

"Hmpf." He realized that he hadn't answered her earlier question. "Been there a few times, me. America is…" In search of an appropriate adjective, he reviewed his American experiences – dodging bullets at the OK Corral, fleeing Daleks atop the Empire State Building, dodging bullets again (not so successfully this time) in a gangland shootout. "Adventurous, yeah."

The little girl looked as if she didn't quite know what to make of this assessment, but her response was cut off by a woman's voice calling, "Rose? Rose! There you are!"

The Doctor turned to see a tall woman in a long brown dress, holding a toddler on her hip and the hand of a small boy who in turn was holding the hand of a girl only slightly bigger than him. "You frightened me nearly to death, Rose. No running off like that; it's a dangerous place to get lost!"

Rose held out her rubber ball by way of explanation and apology. "The ball rolled away. I had to go after it. But I wasn't lost; my friend kept me company. He's a doctor, but I don't know yet of what."

Rose's mother met the Doctor's eyes, her expression vacillating between gratitude and wariness. In an undertone that still carried clearly to Gallifreyan ears, she said, "You misunderstood, Rose. Clearly he is not a doctor. Perhaps he said he was a dock worker." The Doctor glanced down at his outfit, glanced at the various classes of people hurrying past, and admitted grudgingly to himself that he might have to break his rule about period dress if he hoped to succeed in his nascent scheme to save the Daniels family.

"No, he said that–" Rose began, but the Doctor cut her off.

"Mrs. Daniels, I presume." He clasped his hands behind his back, gave her a smile that he hoped was more reassuring than manic. "You have quite a charming daughter." He was rewarded by seeing her posture relax. Compliments about a child never failed to soften a parent, and the fact that he sincerely meant this one could only help his cause. "She tells me that you are leaving tomorrow for America."

"Yes, we are all quite looking forward to it." The tightness around her eyes belied her words and her smile.

"I imagine it's hard to leave family and friends behind, though."

"Yes." The way she clipped out the single syllable told him all he needed to know; she would be an ally when the time came.

"I understand. I'm sort of far from home myself. But you don't need to worry about the little ones, at least. Adaptable, children are. I'm sure Rose here will have no trouble making friends anywhere she goes."

"No, I'm quite sure she will adapt much more easily than I." The child in her arms began to fuss, and she let go of the little boy's hand to shift the toddler to her other hip. "Rose, hold onto James and Christine. We still have several more errands to run before we meet your father for lunch at the Mandarin Tea Garden."

The Doctor had been about to extend the conversation, but this last statement told him all he needed to know for the moment. "Well, don't let me hold you up any longer. Nice to meet you, Mrs. Daniels, Rose." And then he was gone before Mrs. Daniels could realize that she hadn't gotten his name.

* * *

A couple of hours later, the Doctor was in front of the Mandarin Tea Garden. Decked out in frock coat, high starched collar, and purple cravat, he looked every inch the respectable, successful Edwardian businessman – and he hated it. This outfit reminded him far too sharply of his first incarnation, of the him who had been a member of Time Lord society, of the him who had first cut himself off from them. Oh, the Time Lords. He loved them and he hated them, and he wished he had never left Gallifrey and he wished he had left sooner, and he missed them achingly and he was glad to be free of them, and he pitied them for what they had suffered in the Time War and he resented them for what they had driven him to do, and he loathed himself for not finding another way to save the universe and he knew there was no other way to save the universe. The swirl of emotions was enough to make him dizzy, but he clamped down on it with the iron will of the Oncoming Storm and entered the restaurant.

He spotted them immediately, the whole family seated at a round table on the left side of the restaurant, the parents still perusing menus.

"One, sir?" the maitre d' asked. "Very good, sir, if you will please follow me." He gestured to the right, but the Doctor didn't move.

"Actually, I was thinking I'd like that table over there." He tipped his head to the left, towards an empty table just past the Daniels family. The maitre d' looked slightly miffed by this act of rebellion, but pasted on a smile and led him in the indicated direction.

Rose and her mother were facing him as he walked through the restaurant. He watched from the corner of his eye as the little girl caught sight of him, as her face lit with recognition, as she spoke to her mother while pointing at him, as the woman looked up to see him. Only then did he appear to notice them.

"Well, if it isn't the Daniels family! Good to see you again. This is a small world."

Mrs. Daniels blinked in confusion for a moment before her face cleared. "Ah, forgive me, I didn't recognize you at first, Mister…"

"Doctor, actually. Doctor John Smith. Yes, I'm afraid I wasn't quite as presentable this morning. I was overseeing the loading of one of my export shipments. Had to dress for the occasion, you understand."

He suppressed a smile as Rose stage-whispered, "I told you he was a doctor, Mummy."

The father of the family, a slim, bespectacled man with a bushy moustache, turned, half-rose from his seat to meet the newcomer, and the Doctor shook his hand enthusiastically. "Pleased to meet you. I had the pleasure of making your family's acquaintance today on the quay."

"Ah, so you must be the mysterious stranger our Rose has been going on about. My name is Paul Daniels."

"I understand that congratulations are in order on your new job."

"Thank you." He looked much more pleased with the prospect than did the rest of the family. "It is a big change, but, you know, fresh starts and all, what?"

"You make artificial limbs, Rose told me. Bit of a coincidence, that. I own a medical supply company myself." He pulled out the psychic paper, handed it to the other man. "Perhaps you've heard of us?"

Daniels flushed slightly as he gave it back. "I'm rather embarrassed to admit that I have not."

The Doctor waved that away. "Don't worry, you will. We're still a young company, but we're growing by leaps and bounds." He pulled a chair over from the table behind him and settled himself at the Daniels' table, ignoring the long-suffering sigh from the maitre d' as he threw his hands up and walked away. "And we just recently entered the prosthetic limb business. So as you can imagine, it's a subject I know a fair bit about."

It was a subject he knew almost nothing about. And what little he did know more involved advanced bionics than early 20th century Earth technology. But if there was one thing he had learned in 900 years, it was how to bluff his way through a conversation. Before he knew it, the meal was over and he was pushing back from the table as he sipped his tea.

"You have some innovative ideas, Mister Daniels." Also not lost on him was how much Britain was unfortunately going to need those innovations in just a couple of years – not that he could reveal that to the present company.

"Yes, well, I wish my previous employers agreed with you. They were never interested in hearing about improvements. It's why I took the job in New York, in the hopes that I can be more than just a glorified laborer."

"But it would be a shame to let talent like that move across the pond. How would you feel about coming to work for me instead?"

Daniels' teacup clattered in its saucer. "Are you…are you offering me a job?"

"I am. Assistant Manager of our Prosthetics division, right here in Southampton."

"But…but I have a job waiting for me in New York."

"They can't be expecting you for another two weeks at least. That's plenty of notice. You can cable your regrets."

"But we booked passage on the new ship. It's already paid for. We leave tomorrow."

The Doctor shrugged. "I'm sure we can work out an equitable arrangement to compensate you for your troubles." He paused, then added, "And whatever salary the Americans are offering you, I'll beat it by 25 percent."

Daniels looked at his wife in an agony of indecision. She said in reply, "If you accept his offer, if we stay, the children will get to grow up near their grandparents, with their cousins, with their friends."

"I won't have to change schools!" Rose said.

He looked a bit hurt. "I thought you were in agreement with this move, Kathleen."

Mrs. Daniels stretched her hand across the table. "I was. I am. I still will be, if you decide it best. I wanted you to have this opportunity. But if you can have the same opportunity, or perhaps a better one, without such…disruption…"

He turned back to the Doctor. "You are actually serious about this?"

"Deadly." The Time Lord looked around the table, saw all the eyes beaming with hope and excitement, and felt a pang of conscience that he was deceiving a decent man, a man with mouths to feed, into throwing over a perfectly good job for one that didn't even exist. Then he remembered that without this deception, Daniels would likely never reach this job, would likely be dead a few days hence, his family (if they survived at all) arriving in a strange land without protector or provider; and the pang passed. "Assistant Manager, better pay, the chance to have your ideas heard seriously, and all with the comforts of home."

Daniels hesitated a moment longer, searching for an answer in the faces of his family, then relaxed, nodded, held out his hand. "You are a very persuasive man, Doctor. I accept with pleasure."

The Doctor beamed, pumped the other man's hand. "Fantastic! I think this is the start of a beautiful friendship. We'll deal with all the paperwork tomorrow. Here's the location." He flipped the wallet containing the psychic paper at Daniels, let it show him whatever address he wanted to see. Judging by the way his eyebrows rose, it was a rather posh one. "Be there at…" He hesitated. It wouldn't do for Daniels to show up too early, and then still have time to make it to the boat after he realized he had been duped. "You know, I'm tied up in meetings all morning. Let's say you'll be there at one o'clock."

It was a jovial group that spilled out of the tea garden onto the quayside. And perhaps it was those high spirits that attracted the man who now approached them.

"Pardon, folks, just a few minutes of your time. Tom Wyeth is my name; I'm a reporter for the _Southampton Gazette_. I'm doing a piece on the launch of the new ship _Titanic_ , and looking for comments from the townsfolk. Got any thoughts you'd care to share about this historic occasion?"

It was Rose who spoke up, her excitement over the change in fortune too great to be contained. "We were supposed to sail on her tomorrow. But the Doctor here has convinced Daddy to change his plans, so now I get to stay here with all my friends."

"Hush, Rose, it's not your place," said Mrs. Daniels, but the reporter was delighted.

"Last minute cancellation of such a momentous voyage? Fascinating! Mind if I ask you a few questions? Oh, and a photo, I'd love to get a photograph of your family, if I may. Fred!" He waved to a man a few yards away who was taking pictures of the _Titanic_. Fred folded up his tripod and hurried over.

The Doctor figured that this was an opportune moment to escape. "Right, I'll leave you to it, then. Until tomorrow, Mister Daniels."

But Rose clutched at his sleeve. "No, you can't go just yet, Doctor. You have to at least stay and be part of our picture."

He stared down at the innocent, open face, and couldn't find it in his hearts to refuse her. And so he stood, stiff and unsmiling, an awkward addition to the domestic scene, as the photographer captured the Daniels family for posterity.

* * *

Back in the TARDIS, the Doctor headed straight for the wardrobe, shedding items of Edwardian clothing in the hallways as he went. Feeling much more comfortable safely cocooned in his normal jumper and leather, he returned to the console room, giving the time rotor casing an affectionate stroke before leaning back in the jump chair and propping his feet up on the console.

"You did well, old girl. I'll admit, I doubted you at first, but you brought me to the right place after all." He folded his hands behind his head and smiled up at the ceiling. He hadn't felt this…well, happy might be a stretch…this contented since – actually, he realized, the last time he had felt like this was just a day or so ago. Before that, he couldn't quite remember how long it had been. But he had this same feeling of satisfaction as he piloted Rose Tyler and her idiot boyfriend away from the exploding Nestene Consciousness.

And with that thought, the good mood abruptly vanished. He pushed himself to his feet and stalked around the console, playing with the controls. He glowered at his reflection in the rotor, angry at…well, he wasn't sure who he was angry at. He supposed there was no point in blaming himself for feeling stung by Rose's rejection. He was only Gallifreyan, after all – it was natural that his pride would be wounded by her turning up her nose at such a grand offer. All of time and space, and the stupid ape was too small-minded to see what an opportunity he was handing her. But then, there was no point in being angry with her, either – she couldn't help being born with such a tiny brain, being so insensible to the wonders of the universe.

So he supposed he could understand her reaction to his invitation, he could understand his own pique – the one thing he couldn't understand was what had possessed him to invite her in the first place. It wasn't his normal style. Most of his companions stumbled onto his ship more or less by accident. A memorable couple he had kidnapped. But actual invitations were few and far between. So why now? And why her? And why was he still perseverating about it? She was just a London shop girl, scarcely more than a child. And so cheeky. He remembered clearly her self-assured teasing just after her downright cocky stride out of the TARDIS, as her practically-plastic boyfriend clung to her knees: "You were useless in there. You'd be dead if it wasn't for me."

But in a sudden moment of clarity, he knew that that was exactly why he had invited her. Not the cheekiness itself, per se, but what it meant: That she wasn't afraid of him. That she took his alienness in stride. That she accepted him.

He remembered another young woman from more than a lifetime ago, a pilot during the Time War, who had been so afraid of him, of his race, that she had preferred certain death in a crashing spaceship to accepting his help.

But then there was Rose. She now knew a grand total of two aliens, half of whom had done its level best to kill her on several occasions. And yet when the Doctor identified himself as the other fifty percent of her alien acquaintance, she just nodded, said it was all right, and then immediately turned her thoughts to other matters. She challenged him, she teased him, she wasn't afraid to argue with him. She treated him like a regular bloke.

His homeworld was gone. There was not a single place left in the universe where he was not an alien. But Rose's easy acceptance had given him a spark of hope that he might find some way to belong in the world, some sense of home, that someday the echoing void in his head might mellow to a companionable silence. She gave him that hope, and then dashed it to pieces with just two words: "I can't."

"I never belonged on Gallifrey anyway," he insisted to the empty room. "And I've gone centuries at a stretch without setting foot there. I don't need a home. And I certainly don't need Rose Tyler."

With that, he resolved never to think of the matter again. Instead, he turned his thoughts to the Daniels, wondering how they had dealt with the disappointment of the phantom job, wondering if they had eventually made it to the United States on a less disaster-bound ship. He remembered the little girl's look of hope and trepidation when she asked him about America, and he wished he had a better answer to give her. Maybe it was time for another trip there, an attempt to make some better memories.

"How about the sixties?" he said as he set the controls. "Peace and love and flowers and all that? I'll give that a go." He patted the console as the ship began its familiar song of dematerialization. "Show me a good time, old girl."

* * *

 _To be continued in Chapter 4: Motorcade_


	4. Chapter 4: Motorcade

**Disclaimer:** Tragically, I don't own Doctor Who.

* * *

The Doctor heard noisy commotion as he stepped out of the TARDIS. His war-honed instincts made him tense up, ready for trouble, before he realized that that sounds were of an excited crowd rather than of a panicked or angry mob.

He followed the hubbub to its source, a mass of people lining a street in the downtown of whatever city the TARDIS had taken a mind to land in – he couldn't even hazard a guess. He shouldered his way through the crowd to see what all the cheering was about.

A motorcade was slowly wending its way down the street. An advance group of police officers on motorcycles passed first, followed by a white car full of grim-looking law enforcement types; next was a black convertible, with two couples in the back smiling and waving at the adoring crowds. The Doctor squinted against the midday sun to get a better view of the celebrities, and suddenly had a sinking feeling that he knew exactly when and where he was.

He turned to his right, nudged his neighbor, a bespectacled white man in a collared shirt, with his elbow. "Hey, mate, today is November 22, yeah?"

"All day and part of the night," the man said, grinning as if this were an original and immensely witty reply.

The Doctor managed not to roll his eyes, but only just barely. "And the Texas School Book Depository? Where is the Book Depository?"

"What? How in the world should I know? What kind of loony tune question is that?"

This time the Doctor didn't bother restraining his eye roll. "A simple 'I don't know' would do." He leaned forward, tapped the shoulder of the black woman in the head scarf in front of him. "Pardon, ma'am, do you know where the Book Depository is?"

"That's it, I believe." She pointed to an unremarkable brick building down the street.

"Fantastic, ta!" He pushed his way back out of the crowd and took off running. _Dallas, November 22, 1963. The Dealey Plaza Massacre, where President John Kennedy was assassinated, along with his wife, his vice president, nearly half the people in his motorcade. So much for peace and love and flowers._ But he was still buoyed by his recent success in saving the Daniels family, and he grinned as he ran.

Afterwards, he would never know exactly what it was that drew his attention away from the building where he could already see the barrel of a rifle glinting in the sun from a sixth-floor window. Perhaps it was a flash of light, an unearthly sound, an alien scent, something detectable only to heightened Time Lord senses; he couldn't say. All he knew was that he was sprinting past the depository, heading for a small green hill a few hundred feet away.

As he got closer, he saw that the instincts that had sent him in this direction were correct. Behind a stockade fence at the crest of the hill was a mauve-skinned alien, perhaps eight feet tall, bony ridges lining its forehead, six eyes staring down at some piece of equipment, a black metal box topped with a joystick and assorted buttons and dials, that it was holding in its four hands.

The Doctor slid to a stop on the grass and leaned his shoulder casually against the fence, folding his arms across his chest. "Oi, what do you think you're up to, then?"

The alien looked up, four of its six eyes blinking in surprise. "Wait, you can't see me!"

"Obviously I can."

"But the perception filter…"

"Must have calibrated it for humans only."

"And you are…?"

"Not human."

The alien appeared to be waiting for a more specific answer. When none was forthcoming, it said merely, "Ah."

"And you? You're Axipillian, yeah?"

"How can you possibly know that?"

"I know lots of things. Proper genius, I am. For instance, I also know that your lot is a meddlesome, ambitious race. So I can pretty well guess what brings you to this spot today of all days. There always was speculation about conspiracy, about a second shooter on the grassy hill – no, verge – no, knoll, grassy knoll, that's it. But that's not a weapon you're holding, is it?" He leaned over the fence for a better view; the creature clutched the metal box to its chest, but the Doctor had already seen enough. "No, it's a diathurmeric fusion guidance system! Wait, that's what's behind the 'magic bullets', isn't it? The conspiracy theorists claimed that there was no way that just three bullets could do so much damage to so many people, but they could if they were being remotely controlled, courtesy of alien tech, couldn't they?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," the Axipillian said primly.

The Doctor ignored this weak denial. "So Lee Harvey Oswald, he was just what, your patsy? Are you controlling him as well as his ammo?"

"Certainly not. He came up with his plans all on his own. When our advance scouting surveillance team became aware of his intentions, we merely…upgraded his weaponry."

"Unbeknownst to him, I'd imagine. He thinks he's firing a regular old bullet. But you're thinking you can manufacture a crisis even greater than what he intends, take advantage of the confusion and chaos to invade unopposed, yeah?"

"It is a sound strategy." The ridges on the mauve forehead moved closer together in what the Doctor figured was the Axipillian version of a furrowed brow. "How can you possibly know any of this? And why are you using the past tense? You're speaking of our plans as if they've already happened."

"Nope, haven't happened yet. Not going to happen. Because I'm going to stop you." He pulled the sonic screwdriver from his pocket, adjusted the setting, tapped it meaningfully against his palm.

The creature snorted. "With a sonic tool? Not likely."

"Oh, don't underestimate this beauty. Designed it myself. Setting 832 should do it." He activated the screwdriver and the air around the Axipillian shimmered for an instant. The Doctor frowned down at his tool. "Oh. Oops. I seem to have burnt out your perception filter. Didn't mean to do that, actually. Sorry about that. Oh, I see the problem, the setting was off by one. Now it should –"

He had forgotten how fast Axipillian reflexes were, even faster than those of Time Lords. The alien's lower left arm flashed out too quickly for the Doctor to react, slapping the screwdriver out of his hand. It sailed end over end in a high arc, bouncing off the shoulder of one of the spectators lining the street, rolling to a stop in the gutter.

The bystander, a short, young, blond man in a tan suit, whipped around to see who had hit him, a protest forming on his lips, but when his eyes met the now unfiltered alien, his jaw dropped in silence.

The Doctor glanced from the man to the presidential limo, just turning the corner near the book depository into the final stretch of the plaza, and then to the fallen screwdriver, calculating how long it would take for him to run down the hill and retrieve the tool, how long it would take the motorcade to arrive at the point in the street where dozens of lives would end. He knew he wouldn't make it in time. _Okay, time for Plan B: take the guidance system by force. Or Plan C: get Tan Suit to use the screwdriver. Best bet, Plan D: try B and C simultaneously._ He vaulted the stockade fence, launched himself at the Axipillian, whilst yelling over his shoulder, "Pick it up! Pick it up and flick the switch!"

The two aliens wrestled over the black box, as the Doctor continued to shout at Tan Suit to use the screwdriver. The Time Lord managed to grab the joystick and yank it hard to the side, a split second before he heard the sharp crack of a rifle. His cry of victory was cut short when his opponent let go of the box with one hand and gave him a stunning blow to the nose. The Doctor's grip loosened enough for the Axipillian to take over the joystick just as the second shot rang out, but he managed to hang on, and the two were in a stalemate for control when the third report echoed through the plaza.

And then the shooting was over. The sound of gunfire was replaced by the screaming of the crowd, the wail of sirens, the shouting from the motorcade. _Shouting – that's a good sign. Means someone is still alive to do the shouting._ He had saved some – maybe even saved them all, he dared to hope.

The mauve alien released its grip on the guidance system with a suddenness that made the Doctor stagger, and it stepped back. "This isn't over. We will be watching for another opportunity."

"And I'll be watching for you. I'm kind of fond of this planet, you know."

The creature vanished in the blue light of a transmat beam, but the Doctor was distracted from any thought of following when he was hit by a spell of dizziness as the history that he had just changed rewrote itself. He braced himself with one hand on the fence as a wave of new memories washed over him. And that was when he realized that he had saved dozens of lives – the First Lady, the Vice President, policemen, Secret Service agents – but not the President.

All those lives saved, but still, the one lost gnawed at him. He looked around and saw at the bottom of the knoll a good target for his anger. He swung himself over the fence and charged towards Tan Suit, who was still gawking uphill, oblivious to the chaos around him.

"It was purple," the man said before the Doctor could speak. He was staring glassy-eyed at the spot where the Axipillian had last stood.

"It was mauve, you idiot," the Doctor snapped. "And really, I don't like to judge a book by its cover, but mauve is just a spot-on color for that lot." He plucked the screwdriver out of the gutter and shook it in the man's face, rage swelling within him. "And you, fat lot of good you were! 'Pick it up,' I said. 'Flick the switch,' I said. Not too complicated to follow, is it? The president dead, the governor wounded, and you could have saved them both just by listening to one simple direction." _Or_ you _could have saved them by not losing the screwdriver in the first place,_ his conscience reminded him. How he hated that little voice. He wasn't perfect, he couldn't possibly get everything right all the time. Was it too much to ask that someone else pick up the slack now and then?

"It was purple," Tan Suit repeated, apparently not registering a word of the Doctor's tirade, still staring over the Doctor's shoulder.

In the face of this near-catatonia, the Doctor's anger drained away, replaced by a great weariness tinged with pity. "Sorry, mate. You were never meant to see that. Better that you forget that you did." He put his fingers to the man's temples, feeling only the slightest twinge of conscience as he erased the memories of the last few minutes, and then turned him back to face the street before the fog of the mental invasion could clear.

He headed slowly back to the TARDIS, trying to summon the feeling of satisfaction that he knew he should have in what he had accomplished. But all he could think of was what he hadn't accomplished, rehashing the ways it could have gone differently – if he had managed to hold on to the screwdriver, if he hadn't burnt out the perception filter, if Tan Suit hadn't been paralyzed by the sight of the alien. _Rose Tyler wouldn't have been fazed by seeing a mauve Axipillian,_ was the thought that popped into his head unexpectedly. _Rose Tyler would have done what needed doing._

They worked so well together in dealing with the Nestene Consciousness. He pulled the head off of the Auton in the restaurant; she pulled the fire alarm and got all the other diners out of harm's way. He brought them to the vicinity of the transmitter; she pinpointed its location. He provided the anti-plastic; she put it to use. She shepherded the useless but innocent bystander to the TARDIS; he piloted them to safety. Teamwork, partnership, that's what he had found with Rose. And it had been oh such a long time since he had had that with anyone. The thought made him unbearably lonely.

He was overwhelmed by the urge to see her again, just once more, just to remind himself of what they had shared for a brief time. He stepped through the doors of the TARDIS, and was spinning dials and pulling levers before he could think better of it. "Not to talk to her, certainly not to invite her along; I learned my lesson on that one," he told himself. "Just to check on her. Left her alone – well, as good as, with that boyfriend – in the middle of the city, late at night, amidst all that destruction and chaos. I owe it to her to make sure she got home safely. That's all."

And with that firm lecture, he pressed one final button and allowed himself a small smile of anticipation as the TARDIS dematerialized.

* * *

 _To be concluded in Chapter 5: Bicycle_


	5. Chapter 5: Bicycle

**Disclaimer:** Tragically, I don't own Doctor Who. One line was taken from the episode "Rose" by Russell T. Davies.

 **Author's note:** Thanks for reading to the end! This chapter features a cameo by the Third Doctor. For those unfamiliar with Classic Who, the Third Doctor spent most of his tenure confined to Earth with a disabled TARDIS, as punishment from the Time Lords for the "crime" of interference in the affairs of other planets. That should be all you need to know for the purposes of this story.

* * *

He walked out the door, and let out a long-suffering sigh when the light sprinkling of snow swirling through the air and dusting the pavement proved that he wasn't when he had intended to be. And then he stepped back into the shadow of the police box as two young girls came into view.

One, a light-skinned black girl with a smattering of freckles and her hair in long cornrows, rode a blue bicycle in looping circles around the other. And the other…the Doctor smiled wryly at his recalcitrant ship, which had managed to bring him to the right spot if not the right time. Because the other girl, although she was only about twelve years old, although her long hair was a natural brown and her cheeks were round with baby fat, was still unmistakably Rose.

The bike skidded on the snow-slick asphalt, and the rider hopped off and took a few staggering steps to maintain her balance and catch up to her friend. "Maybe not such great weather for riding, yeah? Mum would kill me if I banged up her present the first week I had it."

Rose glided her hand over the shiny blue frame. "I'm so jealous, Shareen. I wish I had one just like it. Only in red, so we could tell them apart. We'd be the bicycle twins of the Powell Estate."

"Christmas is only a couple weeks away. Ask your mum, put it on your list."

"Nah." She scuffed her trainers in the thin coating of snow, leaving long prints behind her as they walked. "She could never afford it. Her latest bloke –"

"Tom?"

"No, he was last month, this one was Gary, remember? Anyway, he cleaned out her bank account before he took off with that tramp from Birmingham. I'll be lucky if she can get me Christmas crackers."

Shareen stared at her for a long moment, then wrapped her arm around her shoulders. "It won't be like this forever, Rose. We're not going to be stuck here on the estate for the rest of our lives. We're going to make it out, go places, do things, see the world."

"Yeah." She didn't sound convinced. "I just wish I had a time machine, you know? Skip over the bad parts, get straight to the good."

They walked on in silence for a couple more minutes before Rose whipped her head around. "Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

Rose looked around in confusion. "I don't know. There was this weird noise, like…I can't describe it. And I swear I saw something moving, or, like, _fading_ , out of the corner of my eye. But…" She stared at the empty street corner, then shook herself. "Nah, must have been in me head. Mum always says I inherited Dad's overactive imagination."

* * *

The Doctor made sure to assess the situation on the monitor before he opened the TARDIS door. With his driving record of late, he didn't quite trust that he had succeeded in landing in Henrik's after closing time, as he had intended. But for once, he saw what he was hoping to see: instead of astonished shoppers, there were only the empty aisles of the Henrik's toy department, dimly lit by the security lighting, seven years pre-Auton.

He walked down the row of bicycles on display until he arrived at a lovely cherry-red model. He couldn't give her all of time and space, but he could give her a red bicycle. And to a twelve-year-old whose whole world was a run-down council estate, maybe that was nearly as good.

He thought of just wheeling the bike into the TARDIS and taking off. But it was high time he got back to the moral code that had been yet another victim of the Time War. And he knew just where he could get the money to obtain the present legally. He checked the price tag on the bike and then jogged back to the TARDIS to set his next destination.

* * *

He looked around the UNIT lab that had once been so familiar to him, looked back at the two TARDISes parked side by side, one war-weary and battered, the other with all of that still to come. Hearing voices, he stepped out into the hallway to find his third self in a heated discussion with one Elizabeth Shaw over some computer printout.

"Hiya, Doctor," he interrupted. "Liz, good to see you again, you're looking well. Listen, sorry to barge in, but it's important. I need a few quid." He held out his hand, palm up, expectant.

His younger older eyes stared back at him, puzzled at first, then suddenly comprehending. Liz stayed stuck in the puzzled stage. "Who are you? How did you get in here?"

"I'm him." He nodded towards the silver-haired version of him, eyed the velvet jacket and the ruffled shirtfront with distaste. Had he really enjoyed all that frippery once?

"Which one?" Three asked.

"Does it matter?" He wiggled the fingers on his outstretched hand. "Come on, UNIT's giving you a salary, and you know that I know that you have no idea what to do with it. So you can spare a bit for me."

"Listen, whoever you are, this is a secure facility, and–" Liz began, but Three cut her off.

"And that means you must have got in with a TARDIS, am I right?" His eyes danced with excitement. "You've got a working TARDIS here?" He started for the lab, but the older Doctor stepped in front of him, put a hand on his chest.

"Sorry, mate. You'll fly her again one day, just not today."

"But I _will_ get her back? The Time Lords _will_ pardon me?"

"Yeah, they–" His throat closed off, his eyes filled up. Fortunately, Three was too busy trying to look past him into the lab to notice. _You'll be pardoned for what you've done. There is no pardon for what you've yet to do._ He cleared his throat. "Don't worry, it won't be too long now. The money?"

"Yes, yes, of course, anything to help me out." Still distracted by the delight hidden in the lab, the younger Doctor waved his hand at Liz without actually looking at her. "Liz, darling, I haven't any cash on me at the moment. Would you be a dear and lend us a bit?"

When Liz looked doubtful, the latest Doctor assured her, "We're good for it. He's got all his paycheques stacked up in the top drawer of the desk; just get him to sign one over to you." With a roll of her eyes, the scientist pulled out her wallet, peeled off a few bills, and then a few more when he kept his hand out.

"Ta. And give my regards to the Brigadier." He let Three follow him into the lab, but made sure to double-lock the TARDIS door behind him so that the other man couldn't trail him into the ship itself. He turned on the monitor, watched Three watching the timeship until she dematerialized.

He remembered being Three, remembered resenting his exile, chafing at his enforced immobility. Now, colored in sepia tones of nostalgia, it seemed such a wonderful time. He had a purpose, made a difference, belonged somewhere, had a connection to someone – several someones.

"That was then, this is now," he told himself sternly. "No point dwelling on it." It was time to forget all this nonsense about belonging and connections, and just deliver to Rose Tyler her gift, a final thank-you for saving his life from the Nestene Consciousness, and then move on and never look back again. When past and future are both equally accessible, one tends to live firmly in the present.

* * *

The Doctor shifted his weight from one leg to the other, leaning against the TARDIS, sipping from a thermos of tea that had long since cooled, ignoring the raw winter wind as he waited for Rose to emerge from her flat. His patience was finally rewarded as the young girl stepped through the door, slinging a backpack over her shoulder and zipping her down jacket to the chin before noticing the shiny red bicycle chained to the railing.

Her face lit with delight, and she glanced over her shoulder, as if expecting her mother to be in the doorway watching her reaction. But the door was closed, the curtains drawn, and she frowned in confusion before turning back to take a closer look at the present. Her fingers trailed along the huge pink ribbon tied to the handlebars, courtesy of the Henrik's gift wrapping department, and then found the gift tag. She crouched down to see it.

The Doctor studied her face as she read the note. _For Rose: Even a time machine won't let you skip past the bad times. But maybe this will help you ride through them to wherever you want to go, in London or in life._ The message was ridiculously twee and not at all his usual style, but he had tried to think back to Susan at that age, and it had struck him as the sort of sentimental codswallop she would have adored. But Rose was from a more jaded era, and perhaps she would think it stupid. He fidgeted uncomfortably as he awaited her reaction.

It wasn't long in coming, but it wasn't what he had expected. He had been hoping for a brilliant smile, had been bracing for a sneer and an eye roll. Instead, she sat down heavily on the concrete walkway, note clutched tightly in her hands, and burst into tears.

The Doctor watched, dismayed. His granddaughter had had a similar distressing propensity for waterworks, and he hadn't understood it any better then than he did now. Part of him wanted to rush up the stairs and comfort the little girl; part of him wanted to rush into the TARDIS and set a course for the Andromeda galaxy.

He forced himself to stay still, to sip his tea calmly and watch her sob and ponder what her life would be. Rose had so much heart, so much potential. But she didn't see that, didn't see much of a future for herself; he had heard that much in her self-deprecating speech disguised as a pep talk when she attacked his Auton captors. She needed someone to challenge her, to show her what she was capable of. She needed him.

That thought hit him like an electric shock. He had spent the last few days thinking – or, more precisely, trying his best not to think – that he needed her. But now it occurred to him that they needed each other: he needed her to fill the void, to connect him to the world; she needed him to reveal the potential around her and within her, to believe in her until she learned to believe in herself.

Rose sniffed away the last of her tears, wiped her eyes roughly with the cuffs of her jacket. She folded the Doctor's note carefully, almost reverentially, this message that seemed to hint at a better future that she couldn't quite put faith in, and tucked it into her pocket. She studied the bike for a moment, tracing its frame with gloved fingers. Then the Doctor finally got the huge smile he had been waiting for, as she jumped to her feet, unchained the bike from the rail, and carried it down the stairs as fast as her feet would go, yelling, "Shareen! Hey, Shareen! Come out and see this!"

The Doctor slid back into the TARDIS, leaned against the doors and pondered his new insight. "Maybe this is what she needs. But it's not what she wants. I offered, she said no. What else can I do? It's not like I can force her to come along." _Give her another chance. She didn't know what she was saying no to. She didn't understand._ "She did understand. I laid it out for her: She could spend her life eating, sleeping, watching telly, or she could go anywhere in the universe." _You said anywhere. Not anywhen._ A slow smile spread across his face. "Right. She wants a time machine, I can give her a time machine."

* * *

The Doctor pulled the maroon jumper over his head. If he was going to show up just a few seconds after he had left, he wanted to look the part, in the same outfit she had last seen him in. It wouldn't do to let her know how long in coming this return was; it might go to her head.

A wave of self-doubt rolled over him as he shrugged his leather jacket back on. Could he really do this, take on a new companion, guide her to her potential, not destroy her in the process? _You did it with Ace._ "That was different. _I_ was different. I was a whole different man then."

Three had asked his identity. He had brushed off the question because he hadn't known how to respond. Who was he now, since…everything? He studied his reflection in the wardrobe mirror, the grim expression, the prominent features. He was reminded of an old fairy tale from Earth. _What big ears you have! The better to hear you with. What a big nose you have! The better to smell you with._ "Is that me now, the Big Bad Wolf?" he asked the man in the mirror. But no, some tug on a thread of time told him that the comparison didn't quite fit him, although it would become important someday, somehow. What he wanted was to be who he always had been. "I am the Doctor. I am still the Doctor. I am the Tenth–No." No, that wasn't right either. His previous go-round was his ninth incarnation, true, but he didn't count, couldn't count as a Doctor. Not after the battles he had fought, the blood he had shed, the great atrocity that had brought him to the end of his life. A doctor was a healer, a helper, one who made others better. The warrior that he had been was no more a doctor than were the 19th century quacks hawking snake-oil panaceas. He squared his shoulders, asserted his identity. "I am the Ninth Doctor." There. That was better. Nine – one word wiping out a whole regeneration's worth of pain and anguish, of suffering both caused and received. This was him now, and nothing before could matter. He knew, of course, that it wouldn't be quite so easy to forget his recent past, but for now, he could feel the hard ball of ice deep within him begin to soften and melt at the edges.

He strode back to the console room with a spring in his step, set his course, flipped on the monitor as the TARDIS materialized. There she was, Rose Tyler, almost exactly where he had left her and only – he checked some gauges – about 35 seconds older, standing, waiting, as if she knew exactly what was going to happen next.

He stuck his head out the door, saw the expectant look on her face, said, "Did I mention it also travels in time?" And then he stepped back and watched her run into his life.

* * *

 _The End_


End file.
